Thank You, Rick S.

For the purposes of keeping my blog out of a rather unpleasant google search algorithm, I will respond to a certain politician's recent remarks on college, referring to him only as "Rick S." 

This is my response to the hub-bub: Thank you, Rick.  And here's why.

If you think everyone in college is a snob, don't come here.  You should be in college because you want to learn something more deeply than you could in high school, and/or you want to take advantage of that sweet college graduate/high school graduate wage gap.  If you're perfectly happy earning low wages and thinking everyone in college is a snob, stay home and don't muddy my class with what would surely be your inane commentary (I do sound kind of snobbish don't I?).

If you think that Satan has taken over college campuses, don't come here.  I have heard this lunacy more times than I can count, but it is not half as bad as the lunacy I get from those who think the devil runs universities and actually show up to class.  Those are the students who accuse me of socialism when I even begin to bring up government involvement in markets, though they have no issue with religious involvement in markets.  Often times government regulation is a response to a natural monopoly, an externality, or some other "market failure".  In that case efficiency can be improved.  There is no moral argument here, it's all about economic efficiency, and its tiring to deal with a theological debate when all I want to do is draw my supply and demand graphs.  I strictly prefer those people I've met who never went to college because of some idea of religious purity than those who wasted my time in the class refusing to work because they thought I was a tool of Satan.  At least the ones who don't even enroll know what they want, and are willing to live with the low wage result. 

If you think that going to college will turn you into Obama, then don't come here.  The last thing I want is a multitude of law professors who don't understand ECON 101 (as I've complained about on this blog, several times) trying out their argument-du-jour when I'm trying to talk about things that matter: child mortality, imperfect markets, getting basic statistics right, and analyzing the effects of development policy.  If you think that my goal is to do that to you, then you're going to be wasting more time in my class trying to resist every comment I make that vaguely sounds progressive, instead of studying what the statistics and literature are saying.  I welcome argument in my class.  Reasonable argument.  I have no time for idiots accusing me of motives I do not hold. 

So yes.  Listen to Rick S, people.  Thank you for saying it, because there is no reason to spend four years of your life, or waste five months of my time, in a place you hate.  It will also make my degree a heck of a lot more valuable with less people graduating who subscribe to these ideas.  If you subscribe to these ideas, and you can get straight As and a great job: be my guest.  Get the A in my class and move on.  But the correlation seems to be that people I've met who believe this:
a) Spend no time on my class, and more time on things that will not help them understand the material,
b) don't listen to a dang thing I say, even things that will help them perform better in the class, and
c) have as little patience for me as I have for them.

So don't come here, don't enroll in economics, and don't waste my time.  Thank you, Rick.  No way I'm voting for you, but thank you.